Dancing With Death

I stare ---
Into this thing
called death.

Does it love me,
Does it call me hither

Warm-fingered and inviting,
Does it smile with a
weathered face,

Does it know me already
Is it like my mother, does it
Want to lift and hold me,
To sing me as I drift away
To sleep?

               -----

What mercy,
Black-hooded saviour
Dim-eyed and still.

Do you cup your hands
To enfold me in your
Treacherous garden of night
As grey and papery as your
Blossoms shrinking from
The light?

Am I your bounty,
Do I compliment your
Harvest?

Or do I fall, fall, fall
Into a nothing.

Where does the void end
Its blackness reaches like
Phantom-limbs of tree-souls
Never to mend.

                 -----

In heady evenings
My thoughts reached for you,
Stamping their eternal damnation
In stones of testimony,
What somnolent splendor.

You bale the hay-straws
Of my accomplishments
Wringing their meager
Thrashings to scatter their
Reasons about your fields of
Indifference to be bird-eaten or
Melted in the sun.

Dance with me, dance with me
Let me stand on your toes
Lift me into the oblivion
Sway me to the beat of abandon
To leave everything behind.
Kiss me in a final solemn song.

                 -----

Marry me in grey, papery shrouds
Let me see at last your ghastly face,
My surreptitious one.

I am ready to fly ---
Give me wings, oh gargoyle,
I become as you.
See me at last with your black eyes,
Enfold me in your tangled shrouds
Of eternity.
Grace me with your blackness,
Caress me with your cold stare
Stir my heart into letting go,
Make me hollow.

My wisdom resides in you,
Guide my hand to hold it ---
A phallic, forgotten transience
Rising in a well of deepening
Defloration of my dignity.

Your robes engulf me
As I swallow your
Musky realizations.

To be free, to be free ---
Its all I ever wanted,
To be born into you,
Your affirmations,
Killing me.

               -----

To write of you,
Oh, torrid one,
Your empty book
Devoid of meaning.
The wheel spins but
Not for us ---

The forgotten ones,
You and I, you and I
How pale we are against
The sky, how turbid
The world beneath us lies.

Yet something holds me
To it, something I grasp as
You whirl me and as I fly.

Your silence will not
Let me release it.
Command me, oh, command me
My grey one ---
Lead me into your waltz.
Help me let go of
The pen, the pen,
But not before my
Time runs dry.